Artist Appreciation Blog Hop: Warhol-inspired Yuletide Pasture card

Everything around us can inspire us to create fabulous projects, and particularly the “proper” artists! For this reason, I was excited to take part in an Artist Appreciation Blog Hop.

The challenge was to create a project inspired by a favourite artist. I have to say this is easier said than done but, after an aborted attempt to recreate a David Hockney in stamps, I came up with this colourful Andy Warhol-inspired Highland Cow card.

Careful fussy-cutting turned this Christmas image into an all-occasion bovine. I simply trimmed off the baubles from the cow's horns. How now, brown, yellow, pink and blue cow?

 

I can’t lay claim to this being a particularly unique colour combo as it’s just four of our five new In Colors! It’s not often you’ll see me voluntarily using Magenta Madness, so don’t get used to it. 

To create a background reminiscent of Warhol’s original pieces, I used a small clear block as a stamp, inking with Memento Tuxedo Black. As this is a linen pad, it transferred the linen pattern to the block and, in turn, to the cardstock.

Please check out the other projects in the hop! Head around the world for some more artist inspiration.

Share sunshine with this beautiful new craft kit

I’ve become a big fan of the fabulous craft kits from Stampin’ Up!® I took one on holiday with me the other week (projects to come another time) because they’re perfectly compact and self-contained, so they don’t take up much space and know you won‘t have left something behind.

The perfect summer holiday craft kit is the new Share Sunshine Paper Pumpkin kit, which is available today while supplies last. This bright and cheery kit has been specially developed with Sara Douglas, our CEO, to help you share sunshine with friends.

It contains everything to make eight cards with envelopes, including a stamp set and ink spot (you’ll need Clear Block D or larger). While Paper Pumpkin is a subscription service currently only available in North America, this kit has been rolled out globally so everyone gets the opportunity to #sharesunshine.

Please get in touch ASAP if you’d like to order a kit, or you can order yourself from my store here, using August’s host code JKNMFKHY

Whatever the weather, this is a beautiful box of sunshine to share. Weather hot? Share that sunshine! Weather cold and wet? Create your own sunshine.

And, when you’ve made your projects, you will have leftover supplies to decorate the box, fill it with yellow gifts, pop in a card and send some sunshine where it’s needed.

Please let me know if you’d like me to order a kit for you – then, if you wish, we can get together on Zoom to craft and chat while we create.

My first Christmas card of the year, using Yuletide Pasture

I’ll be honest, I’m not really ready for Christmas cards... although you may have gathered that from the sentiment on this card...

But it was a fun opportunity to use three new Stampin’ Up!® products; the fabulous Yuletide Pasture stamp set and some lovely polka dot paper from the Trimming The Town Suite from the new August-December Mini Catalogue and, from the still newish Annual Catalogue, the must-have Playful Alphabet Dies.

I began by stamping the Yuletide Pasture sheep in Gray Granite, then gently colouring her in using Stampin' Blends alcohol markers. It can be challenging to achieve subtle colours using Stampin’ Blends so I did this by using Smoky Slate Light with Ivory on top, then toned it down with the Colour Lifter.

Just so you know, you can’t really use the Colour Lifter as a blender pen because it simply doesn’t work that way. It’s a bit of a misnomer actually because the Colour Lifter doesn’t lift; rather it pushes some of the ink through to the back of the cardstock.

Image coloured, cut out using Stitched Rectangle Dies and mounted on some Old Olive cardstock, it was time to create my sentiment – and this was something I’d had in mind from the moment I saw this stamp set.

Out came the Playful Alphabet Dies and a brand new adhesive to go with them. I have only just purchased the Foam Adhesive Sheets but they really are a game-changer. Stick your cardstock to a sheet (or piece of sheet) and die-cut it all together. It’s an absolute boon with small dies such as these as you get a perfectly cut Dimensional to make it really easy to stick your letters down.

So there we have it. I bought the Yuletide Pasture stamp set with this card in mind and now just need to come up with some other ideas for the rest of the images. Actually, I already have done ... and you can see the Highland Cow in action on Thursday when I take part in another blog hop. Please come back to see the cow like you’ve never seen it before – and are never likely to see again!

Designer Series Paper only ‘almost’ perfect for your project? This is the issue I had here. I loved the polka dot paper from the Trimming the Town Designer Series Paper pack but I found the white letters didn’t stand out quite as clearly as I’d like against the white. To keep the pattern without the contrast, I simply brayered over the top using Poppy Parade ink.

No brayer? No problem, just use a sponge instead. No sponge either? Try the direct-to-paper technique, swiping your ink pad over the paper... just be aware that this will give you a much more intense effect, as long as your ink pad is well inked.

Field of Flowers on a brick wall

The Field of Flowers bundle is new and beautiful and is a great way to use up all of those watercoloured backgrounds that I have a tendency to hoard.

Here I’ve used it with the Brick & Mortar 3D embossing folder, embossing Whisper White cardstock to provide a stark contrast. A few flowers punched out with the Confetti Flowers Border Punch add splashes of random colour.

I’d like to say this was a pre-planned card with sound design principles at its heart but really I just cobbled it together with some leftover pieces. Turned out okay, though, didn’t it?

Creating watercoloured backgrounds is fun, but they don't always turn out how you want. However they turn out, my tip is to save them for another day. They always look different when you’ve had a sleep, and they may just go perfectly with another project, another time.

New August-December Mini Catalogue goes live today

It’s beginning to look a lot like... there’s a new catalogue! Today is the day when you can order from the brand new August-December Mini Catalogue from Stampin’ Up!® And it’s packed to the drawstring with gorgeous projects for autumn, Hallowe’en and – gulp – Christmas.

You can see – and shop – the new products here

Here are just a few of the products which have my name all over them...

The Gilded Autumn Suite – gorgeous! I loved this so much that I bought the whole Suite. The punches are so cute and the paper is currently too nice to use...

In The Pines Bundle – well you know I’m a sucker for trees, and especially pine trees as I’ve just returned from a week in the Abernethy Forest in the Scottish Cairngorms. They’re really good for you, too – they emit chemicals which boost your mood and your immune system. Clever things, trees. 

Coming Home Bundle – such a fun bundle, comprising the Coming Home stamp set and the Home Together Dies. Add the paper for even more fun. Best of all, if you purchase this stamp set, £2.50 will be donated to charities devoted to adoption, foster care and infertility. 

Yuletide Pasture stamp set – well, what can I say? It has a cat in it! Along with a sheep (baa humbug cards coming soon) and a Highland cow. I can see me combining this set with In the Pines for a truly Highland Christmas card. 

Christmas Countdown advent calendar kit – yes, it’s back! This was SUCH a popular kit last year and there’s plenty of mileage left in it yet. As you can see from this photo, you don’t have to make a Christmas project; use it with any Designer Series Paper or stamped images to create a year-round décor or storage item. And guess what? You can decorate BOTH sides of those boxes, so you can make your advent calendar on one side, and something else on the other. It’s a twofer!

Which ones are on your wish list?

Playful Alphabet Dies meet Rainbow Glimmer Paper

I needed an 18th birthday card for my nephew. I know, tough crowd, right? Most of my stamps were unsuitable but I thought these Playful Alphabet Dies would do the trick perfectly.

It may be a bit of an overstatement but, to me, the Playful Alphabet Dies are a game-changer. Without wishing to state the obvious, you can spell out anything on your cards – personalising them and creating sentiments that aren’t available within our stamp range. You can even send a cheeky message to a friend... but if it’s too cheeky, perhaps don’t tell the nice folk at Stampin’ Up!®

Yes, I know we’ve had alphabet dies – and stamps – before, but there’s something about these which makes them so much more versatile. For me, it’s the chunky, simple font and the small size. Each letter die is about 3/4" but, because of the chunky font, they aren’t too fiddly to handle. Those who know me will know I don’t do fiddly.

But the thing that swayed me towards this set of dies is the way they look SO good when you use the negative... so in many cases you get two projects from one. Not so much here, as I only needed a card to contain a cash gift but I could have made a gift tag using the letters I cut out.

What I did do was place some small cut-offs from the FAB.U.LOUS new Rainbow Glimmer Paper behind the letters. This is gorgeous and best of all, it doesn’t shed! I cannot stand glitter bits everywhere, not just because they’re annoying but for environmental reasons.

Using the dies in this way is a really handy way of using up any tiny pieces of glimmer paper, Designer Series Paper, cardstock etc that you just can’t bear to throw away. Come on, I know I’m not the only who hoard little pieces “just in case”!

One-Sheet Wonder using Just Jade and Forever Greenery

If an idea's worth using, it's worth reusing! I see no point in reinventing the wheel, so for these projects I simply revisited an old design in a new colour combination.

I still had some more people to welcome into my team so decorated another batch of A5 notebooks and made matching cards.

Again, it's a one-sheet wonder (spotted a theme this week?) which is a pretty speedy way of making your projects. And versatile, too – you can use your one-sheet wonder (OSW) in any way you like. I've simply cut mine into pieces a bit smaller than my finished project, then cut into thirds to create this triptych effect.

The colour combo is a little different and is one I've taken from my In Color combinations charts. I figured I may as well use the combinations now I've gone to the trouble of creating them!

Decorating a notebook is easy – it's just like a big card. Don't overthink it, just play around on a piece of card and then mount it onto your notebook front.

See more one-sheet wonder tips here 

And more tips here

Sneak Peek: Beautiful Autumn One-Sheet Wonder

The theme of today's post is the wonderful One-Sheet Wonder which is an old technique that never goes out of style.

Each week in my customer Facebook Group and in our weekly Show & Tell Zoom sessions I set a challenge. Last week this was to create a One-Sheet Wonder then use it to make one or more projects.

I was blown away by their creativity; we had dogs, leaves, flowers, snowflakes, pine boughs and even cars – and some amazing projects made with their sheets. Not everyone made cards; some made scrapbook pages or boxes, too! Really, anything goes.

Best of all, everyone said they had really enjoyed the challenge and loved making their One-Sheet Wonders.

If you’re not familiar with the One-Sheet Wonder concept, it’s very simple. It’s just a fancy name for making your own patterned paper so all you have to do is take a sheet of any cardstock – it doesn’t have to be white – and stamp all over it.

I’ve stamped here using the new Beautiful Autumn stamp set – yes, this is my first Sneak Peek from the new August-December catalogue. I bought the whole Suite of products again because it’s just so lovely, but I have only had chance to use the stamps and dies so far.

I wouldn’t say this was the ideal set for a One-Sheet Wonder, mainly because the images are so small that it’s quite time-consuming. This A4 sheet took me over an hour to stamp ... but then I did use eight different ink pads!

However, I think it was worth it; I have to blow my own trumpet a little and admit I think it looks pretty fab. Hope you like it too!

The Beautiful Autumn Bundle includes the Autumn Punch Pack; three fab medium-sized punches which create these gorgeous little leaves. The stamps are all two-step, too, so I stamped the outlines in a darker shade and then filled in with a lighter one. They’re photopolymer, so positioning is really easy.

To mat the greeting, I used the Tasteful Labels dies on Soft Suede cardstock  and embossed them using the Greenery Embossing Folder. My obsession with leaves and trees means many of my products co-ordinate beautifully across different Suites.

My main tip for creating a One-Sheet Wonder is to start with the largest stamps and stamp randomly over the sheet, leaving roughly equal spaces between them. Remember to keep turning the stamps so you don't end up with a pattern.

Take the next largest stamp and stamp again in a different colour. Repeat until you get to the smallest stamps. This allows you to maximise the space and get as many images on there as possible.

I usually say to start with the palest colour and work your way through to the darkest colour, but this is one rule that is definitely made to be broken!

When your sheet is stamped, you can cut it up as you wish to make as many projects as you like. I simply cut my sheet into quarters, then cut each one down to fit onto a card front, slicing them into thirds. The excess strips were used to embellish the insides of the cards.

When you cut up your sheet, you may find you have some empty areas around the edges. Don't worry, you can fill these in with more stamping if necessary.

Another tip to maximise your One-Sheet Wonder is to stamp all over with your chosen colours, then cut in half and add another colour to one of the pieces. You can repeat this if you wish to get lots of different looks from one sheet.

One of the main advantages of a One-Sheet Wonder is that it’s a time-saving device if you have a lot of cards to make (unless you use tiny stamps and eight different ink pads!), which means it’s ideal for your Christmas cards or for party invitations.

The other main advantage is that it’s very therapeutic. You just stamp away merrily without having to think too hard about what you’re doing. And we all need a bit of mindless crafting these days, don’t we?